THE CONSERVATIVE VIEW

BY RUSSELL TURNER

TO TIP OR NOT TO TIP

Over the years I have noticed how easily people can get angry when they get poor service whether it is at a restaurant or any other business. If the waitress is rude or is sloppy with your food, most people would not frequent that establishment again and I doubt they would leave a tip. We Americans have come to demand that people in the service businesses conduct themselves in a professional manner and treat the customer with respect. It seems ironic that while we demand a professional attitude in the private sector, we don’t become outraged when government employees conduct themselves in a less than stellar manner.

Recently a high ranking employee in the Environmental Protection Agency made an offhanded remark about trying to crucify companies, namely in the oil and gas industry, when they were in some violation of a regulation. It sounds to me like their job of playing gotcha has become some kind of perverse game to them. We do need to protect our planet, but anyone who has ever run any kind of business knows how hard it is to abide by all of the regulations that are placed upon him or her. Most businesses of any size are forced to have attorneys on retainer just to keep their companies from being wiped out because they inadvertently failed to obey just one of the rules.

Every time we stop and fill up our cars we need to remind ourselves that the price we are paying is in part to the expense of these regulations. I have noticed that many of these mindless bureaucrats have never run a business and have no comprehension of the pressures that private business people face on a daily basis. Instead of trying to be civil and work with the oil and gas companies to provide a save and reliable source of energy, they want to make life as difficult as possible. It is a fact that for the foreseeable future our main source of energy in this country will be oil and gas. The idea of solar and wind power may sound good, but with the current technology they are not a viable option at this time.

One of my senators from Oklahoma has called this remark to task and I am proud of Senator Jim Inhofe for doing what any patron of a restaurant would do when they received disrespectful service from the staff. It is time that we Americans start holding un-elected bureaucrats to the same standard as we expect from people in the private sector. In my humble opinion, the person making the remark about wanting to crucify someone should be demoted to the position of cleaning toilets and also not receive a tip.

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